Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. Ecclesiastes 5:1-2

Prayers can tell you a lot about someone. When my daughters were little and we prayed before bed each night, their prayers were filled with keeping family members safe and thanksgiving for special moments of the day. It was pretty sweet. I have prayed with families in the hospital where the focus was entirely on the immediate needs of sick loved ones. We begged God for his help.

All of those prayers are good. But if those are our only prayers then our prayer life is impoverished. God wants us to bring him the needs we perceive around us but He has much more for us than that. The eternal God knows how we can grow in ways we have not considered. He knows areas of our lives that could thrive that we may have not even discovered. He has ways that we can be more pure, more holy, more loving, more courageous, and how will we ever know about them?

Jonah would have never asked God if this was a good time to go to Nineveh. Moses would have never asked God whether it was a good idea to ask Pharaoh to release the Israelites from bondage. Our God may have equally wondrous works in store for us that would never show up in our self-centered prayers. The point is not to quit asking God for His help. The point is to listen to God. How can we please Him?

If your prayers today don’t include a time of listening for God’s leadership, take that on. Meditate on the scripture for today and see what the Lord will say. You may find your life heading in a whole new direction – a direction pleasing to God.